Published on June 19th, 2023
The pandemic has taught businesses of every shape and size to switch to remote working. While this has proved to be a boon for many, many organizations still find implementing this transition challenging.
Lower engagement levels directly impact their productivity and performance. Keeping remote workers engaged can be challenging as their physical absence makes it difficult for the company to keep them engaged and connected to the organization.
It can lead to isolation, loneliness, and an outright lack of passion for achieving business goals and objectives.
Managers and the entire HR team should concentrate on putting particular emphasis on enhancing remote employee engagement.
When an organization thinks and invests in improving employee engagement, it leads to better productivity and long-term association of the employees with the company.
In this article, we have covered various effective employee engagement strategies that boost remote’s employee’s engagement right from day one.
5 Tips For Engaging Remote Employees
Even though the pandemic is starting to fade and the world is gradually returning to normal, many companies prefer extended work-from-home stints.
Therefore, it is becoming more of a necessity for new HR leaders to learn innovative and effective ways to boost remote employees’ engagement and ensure they are happy and satisfied so that their performance levels always stay high.
Say Goodbye To Micromanagement
Managing remote employees is quite a complex area for management. On the one hand, they miss face-to-face interactions; on the other, they continuously look for ways to keep their engagement and productivity levels high.
Sometimes, the HR department finds this transition difficult; they are unable to figure out whether their employees are working on it every day or not.
Many studies suggest that employers who can’t see their employees’ direct reports are always unsure of their work.
In response to this, the organization starts to adopt micromanagement but fails to realize that this is one of the productivity and morale killers.
Instead, you can adopt sustainable methods of managing your employees, such as,
- Adapt different ways of measuring your employee’s performance
- Set down expectations, and discuss work hours, goals, break times, and more.
- Create a stringent structure where you conduct regular meetings, check-ins, and more. Shorten the hierarchy levels to provide added clarity, and employees will not have to waste time chasing management for approvals.
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Always Ask For Their Feedback
Collecting feedback is a great way to ensure employees are engaged and motivated through various organizations’ processes. Feedback could be related to anything, such as:
- Collecting their valuable opinions about improving an existing plan or procedure.
- Taking their views on the current management
- Their unbiased opinions on the company’s culture, management, and ethics.
All these pointers can be easily achieved through employee engagement surveys or video meeting calls. This small act will show your employees that no matter whether they are working remotely, their views and opinions still matter.
Always Appreciate And Recognize For A Job Well Done
Many working professionals always feel they are not good enough; they have this feeling of getting replaced by someone better. This hampers their performance as they are unable to perform at their best.
The best way to prevent this is by appreciating them for every little task they perform. Recognize your employees for all the hard work and give the credit where it’s due.
It makes them feel valued and ensures they are also considered a part of something bigger and better. This fosters trust and loyalty and improves retention and productivity.
An employee engagement company needs to create software with built-in employee feedback and performance tools to successfully implement it for the workforce working remotely.
Provide Perks And Benefits
Making sure you provide enough perks and benefits to your remote team ensures you care for them and consider them a valuable part of the organization.
You can include some of the below-mentioned ideas, such as-
- Giving them premium subscriptions for Netflix, Hotstar, or Prime.
- Providing them with health coverage benefit
- Giving them access to online health and fitness programs and more.
Before going ahead with any of this, always meet with the finance department to ensure your company has sufficient funds for implementation.
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Give Their Wellness A Priority
Healthy employees are happy employees, whether they are working remotely or from the office. Furthermore, as per research, employee engagement and well-being are interconnected and influence each other.
It is important to note that both physical and mental wellness plays a significant role in employee performance and engagement.
Mental health issues also lead to poor performance, disengagement, and lack of productivity.
Ensure you foster a culture that empowers employees to lead a happy and healthy life by incorporating certain workplace aspects such as:
- Provide an effective and comfortable WFH setup
- Offer them health incentives
- Conduct mental health awareness programs and make attendance compulsory
- Setting clear limits on employees’ working hours and availability.
Conclusion
It’s an evident fact that remote work is here to stay. This means you as an organization and management must understand and adapt to new and innovative ways to keep your remote workforce engaged, happy and motivated.
Fortunately, there are many ways to manage and engage remote employees, as discussed above, which will undoubtedly keep them productive and boost their engagement levels to a greater extent.
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